A walk in my shoes

A 33-year resident of the 2nd District shares memories of living in Los Angeles during the 1992 uprising and how the community came together to support one another.

Transcript

I’m a resident of here in the second district.

 

I’ve been living in this district for 33 years, which is all the time that I’ve lived in Los Angeles.

 

I’m a native of Mississippi.

 

And so coming to the big LA, I would say from Mississippi was definitely a change.

 

However, if I were to describe something about my walk or walking in my shoes here and in the Second District and in Los Angeles, a moment I would describe would be a time during, actually, during the riots when you would think it was all chaos.

 

But actually, where I was to show you that in the second district, we still have very good people, no matter what the news or sometimes the news put on.

 

There are very good people here.

 

We are homeowners.

 

We love each other.

 

And so during that time during the riots, the homeowners came together to support one another, to watch out for each other.

 

Children to watch out for each other.

 

The electricity was off.

 

So we were sharing like we do back at home in Mississippi sugar and everything we needed.

 

And we helped each other out.

 

And we also went outside of the neighborhood to help others.

 

So that was just to walk in my shoes to say that Second District has some great, great residents here.

 

And we are homeowners.

 

We love our property.

 

We love our people.

 

And again, these are just some of the things that I can tell you about this good old second district and living here again.

Celebrating, Elevating, and Facilitating Racial Justice Leadership in the Second District

The Second District Racial Justice Learning Exchange (RJLE) is an initiative of the Office of Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell that brings district residents, County, civic and community leaders together to learn from and celebrate our diversity, confront biases and inspire meaningful steps to eliminate structural racism.